Delray Beach sweat lodge helps drug addicts

Some former drug addicts who seek a new approach to recovery are bathing in the heat of a Delray Beach sweat lodge, where they say Native American traditions are helping them heal and re-enter society.

The lodge, where the temperature rises as high as 120 degrees, is a Native American medicinal technique designed to heal ailments and chronic illnesses. Today, many people participate in an assortment of sweaty activities to detoxify, such as saunas, steam baths, hot yoga and heated boot camps, although the value of exercising in high temperatures is still hotly debated.

Sweat lodges are not yet a widely used drug recovery technique, although rehab centers in several states have begun to offer them. They received lots of attention in 2009, when three people died after a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona.

In Delray Beach, up to 12 people sit in a circle in a little hut off Linton Boulevard, where healers schooled in Native American rituals place hot stones doused with herbs and oils in the center. Participants, who spend an hour and a half in the tent, can take part in the ancient ceremony or withdraw into themselves and be silent.

"It's like being in your mother's womb," said Emily Andari, 22, a former opiate addict from Kentucky who came to Delray Beach to heal at a recovery center. "The hotter it gets, the more internal I go. It becomes meditative for me."

Andari said she did not like going to daily 12-Step program meetings and started looking for alternatives. Many people in recovery are searching for healing strategies outside 12-Step programs, said Lois Pasapane, addiction studies chair at Palm Beach State college. Several approaches are growing in popularity, she said, including eye movement desensitization, a technique to combat traumatic experiences.

"There is no cookie-cutter formula for this," said Craig Givens, a licensed mental health counselor who works with addicts. He said 12-Step programs' focus on a higher power proves too challenging for some former addicts.

"The concept of God is daunting to many people, and this is an easier entrance to spirituality," Givens said.

Givens said he attended a sweat lodge at the Seminole Indian Reservation a few years ago with clients.

"You have to be receptive to it," Givens said. "It's for people who are looking for something different."

Jim Arrow Hawk believes sweat lodges are a good way for recovering addicts to search deep inside and emerge with tools for dealing with their problems. He started the Delray Beach sweat lodge two years ago and is working on creating lodges for addicts across the country.

Arrow Hawk, 62, said sweat lodges helped him recover from trauma he experienced in the Vietnam War as a helicopter door gunner in 1971. He said his lodges follow the prayer traditions of his Cherokee ancestors.

The hot rocks are set up on an altar in the center of the lodge, which is dark except for the glow of the stones. Buckets of water and oils are poured on the stones, creating a sauna. Arrow Hawk said he offers prayers and a history of sweat lodges as he talks and periodically asks people if they want to leave.

"No one has to sit in there and suffer," he said.

Lisa Neu, who now leads the Delray Beach lodges and runs The Wakeup, an alternative-medicine approach to addiction, said she hopes to expand the number of drug rehab centers that participate. She also plans to offer sweat lodges to the general public about four times a year.